The reunion quintet with Sue MacGregor. Left to right: Roy G, Sue, Harry Arnold, Wendy Henry, Tom Petrie and Trevor Kavanagh holding the front page of a special "farewell Wapping" edition of the Sun PR

Memories of my third, and longest, stint on the Sun from 1981 to 1986 are a strange mixture of madness and sadness. Madness because, amid the daily pressure – and perhaps because of it – there was lots of craziness and laughter.

Sadness because I was involved in a journalistic enterprise that I could never identify with. I hated the paper's politics. I was upset with most of the content. And I found it wearing to deal with a bullying editor, Kelvin MacKenzie.

I don't know how I lasted as long in the job as I did, and Kelvin has often said much the same, especially since I later became so critical of the paper in public.

So, when invited to appear with former colleagues on Radio 4's The Reunion, I wondered how I would be greeted and, just as importantly, whether I would properly reflect the balance between the madness and sadness.

What will have struck every listener is that Kelvin, the central architect of the Sun throughout the 1980s, wasn't there. But he was valiantly defended by three loyalists who were – political editor Trevor Kavanagh, assistant editor Wendy Henry and news editor Tom Petrie.

What struck me, on listening to the edit (much more was said in the studio than was broadcast), was the impossibility of relaying the complexity of the Sun's story in 40 minutes.

It was an entertaining snapshot. Hats off to the producer, Emily Williams, and the presenter, Sue MacGregor, for that. They had done their homework and it was all neatly stitched together round archive inserts that illustrated how different Fleet Street, and life, was 30 and more years ago.

I had no memory of the TV advert at the Sun's November 1969 launch: "Does your daily paper bore the pants off you? Then wake up with the Sun". On the other hand, I was sitting on the new paper's subs desk at the time, so I wouldn't have seen it anyway.

The early clips of Rupert Murdoch undergoing hostile interviews were a reminder of just how much the establishment disliked him and the paper. In fact, that haughty disparagement proved to be a stimulus to its circulation growth.

One of the reasons for the Daily Mirror's long period of sales success with its working class audience had been its irreverence and anti-establishment image. The Sun took that to a new level in a new age.

The Mirror's support for Labour and tacit support for trades unions, along with its unconcealed attempt to act as an educator, made it seem part of the establishment.

By contrast, the uninhibited, brash and sexy Sun – created by Murdoch in company with his first choice as editor, Larry Lamb – caught a new individualistic mood among a working class that was beginning to question its former political and trades union allegiances.

It overtook the Mirror in 1978 and seemed set fair for continuing sales dominance until the Daily Star was launched and Lamb, after being knighted, fell into the trap of making his paper overly serious, with too many splashes devoted to politics and economics.

The Star, aided by bingo, began to build sales at the Sun's expense. Murdoch acted in June 1981, ousting Lamb, hiring Kelvin and launching bingo with ever-increasing prizes.

With MacKenzie at the helm, the paper not only regained its energy but became an agenda-setting paper renowned for its strident support for the blessed Margaret Thatcher and outrageous headlines that achieved iconic status: Freddie Starr ate my hamster, Up yours Delors, Gotcha! and It was the Sun wot won it.

Kelvin did not stray into controversy, he embraced it. And he went over the top too often. The portrayal of the Hillsborough disaster on a notorious front page headlined "The Truth" is one of the moments that split the five of us in the reunion studio.

Harry Arnold, the Sun's scoop-getting royal correspondent, enjoyed telling tales of chasing Princess Diana but he was much more considered and serious when recounting how he tried to persuade Kelvin not to run the Hillsborough headline.

Kavanagh and Henry weighed in to explain why Kelvin had felt justified in doing so. It was another reminder of the split between the harmless fun of the Sun and its capacity for casual cruelty.

Many of the Sun's "victims" – politicians and celebrities – deserved the ignominy heaped on them by the paper. But there were far too many people, such as the bereaved of Hillsborough, who suffered at its hands.

By coincidence, after leaving the studio, I had an appointment to interview the Sun's latest editor, David Dinsmore (published on 11 August here), who was settling in to the paper's post-Wapping headquarters in the baby shard at London Bridge.

It was surely significant – as I pointed out – that the titles of the meeting rooms hark back to the Sun of Kelvin MacKenzie some 20 years after he left. They are named after his headlines, as mentioned above, plus one nominated by Kavanagh as his favourite: "If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights."

Neil Kinnock did not win that 1992 general election. It was, according to the post-election MacKenzie headline that Murdoch disliked intensely, the Sun that won it (for John Major).

There have been five editors since Kelvin's departure and, in varying ways, they have provoked controversy too. But his Sun is the one everyone – journalists, politicians and the public – remembers, for good or ill. And that really is The Truth.